Weakside Power Plays

remove him with twins that way

I like getting in a twins WR look to the weakside with a TE on backside of the play. This should get the outside invert away from the "box."

Try using a counter play with the Guard trapping C-gap (usually DE) and have FB, off-set to TE side, pull as the lead blocker on the LB.

On the play-side, OT combos down to the BS LB with the play-side Guard. Center blocks back.

Tailback, can either shuffle backside, slide-step backside, or even take two quick steps to ward backside B-gap to simulate ISO and then come back on top of the QB.

Tell the ball carrier to "stay between the cheeks" of the trapping guard and the lead fullback. This is a coaching point that Jim Tressel uses for his power play, which is the same play described, with the Guard and Fullback exchanging duties.

Coach Neil,

What tailback steps do you personally use, and what kind of steps / mesh do you use with the quarterback to match-up?

Lochness,

We had the luxury of having an all-American in the backfield. We won back-to-back state titles with the POWER play, which we called BUCKEYE, because of Jim Tressell's in-depth knowledge and teaching of this play. On our BUCKEYE (to the strong side), our back took a "lateral step" and then hit B-gap, "staying between the cheeks." We would do this mostly out of the "I" but we would offset our FB to the TE some.

The natural counter to BUCKEYE, was COUNTER BUCKEYE, in which our offset FB and pulling guard exchanged assignments. Because our bread-and-butter was BUCKEYE, with a lateral step to the play-side, on our COUNTER BUCKEYE we mimicked the same lateral step, and then came back to the opposite side of the lateral step. SO on COUNTER BUCKEYE RT we took a lateral step to the left, and ran the play to the right.

Our QB, on COUNTER BUCKEYE RT, wanted to have the same action as BUCKEYE LT, so he would reverse-out (past 6 o'clock) and flash the ball to the TB as if to run BUCKEYE LT. Then as the TB went on top of the QB, to the right, the QB would bring the ball back to his gut and place it in the basket formed by the TB's arms. By having the QB reverse out to the actual backside first, it enables the FB to maintain proper timing on his "pull" to the front-side LB.

u]Buckeye Blocking Assignments</u>
PS TE: Block down; protect C-gap; Combo with PS T to BS LB
PS T: Block down; protect B-gap; Combo with PS G to BS LB
PS G: Block down; protect PS A-gap; Combo with PS T (or C vs. 50) to BS LB
C: Block back; protect BS A-gap; vs 50 combo with PS G to BS LB
BS G: "Skip out, Stay Square, & get in the hole"; pulling as the lead blocker for the TB; probably getting
PSLB
BS T: Pick B-gap & hinge if no B-gap run through (WILL LB, 4i, or wide 3-tech)

FB: the trapper; 2 steps at B-gap and then trap the C-gap, usually DE, but could be OLB.

There are different ways the TE could block. He could arc relase to OLB which may widen the DE helping the FB's block; he could base out the DE if in a 9 or 6.

Versus a 3-4 look we had the PS T, on the open-side, base the 4-tech, and had PS G combo down with C to the BS LB.

This is how a lot of teams run their power play, and it is more of an A-gap run, than a B-gap run.

Our basic philosophy was, on the play-side, we are looking for double teams all the way down to the BS LB. We also had our BS G stay parallel on his pull. When he used a conventional pull technique (shoulders perpendicular) he often had trouble getting North and South and overrunning the LB. Staying square and reading "cloudy-to-clear" helped a lot with our guys.